Many different types of methods and devices have been developed for performing anastomosis of anatomical tubular structures such as veins, arteries, bowel and other tubular vessels within human and animal bodies. Generally, anastomosis is a connection between two anatomical tubular structures that have been separated from connecting tissue. Particularly, anastomosis is a surgical joining of two ducts, blood vessels or bowel segments to allow flow of fluid from one of the ducts, blood vessels or bowel sections to the other. In other words, conventional anastomosis connects two free ends of the ducts, blood vessels or bowel segments together.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,470,415 to Wozniak teaches a device and method for sutureless surgical anastomosis. A heat shrinkable sleeve is placed around two tubular members to be anastomosed and then shrunk to engage and maintain the two tubular members in an anastomotic relationship. The ends of the tubular members are everted over ferrules which are positioned on the ends of the tubular members.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,294,255 to Geroc teaches an intraluminal anastomosis device that includes complimentary, ring-shaped clamping and pinning members for end-to-end anastomosis of an anatomical tubular structure. Confronting faces of the members of the device have an annular, sharpened rim that is located at a radially innermost position. The confronting faces of the members also include an annular groove located radially outwardly of the rim. The annular groove includes a plurality of spaced, longitudinally extending openings that have radially inwardly projecting serrations. Toothed pins are retained in the openings to securely clamp the members and intervening tissue together.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,264,257 to Berggren et al. discloses a surgical instrument for performing anastomosis. The surgical instrument includes two clamps with each clamp arranged to support a fastening member. The fastening members are rings that have axially extending pins. The clamps are rotatably connected to the surgical instrument. The surgical instrument is actuated by moving the clamps toward each other to join the fasteners and vessels which are threaded onto the fastening members.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,606,888 to Wilkinson reveals a stapling apparatus for anastomosis of hollow viscera. An annular array of staples are set to join cut ends of a hollow viscus by everting the cut ends through and outwardly between a pair of opposed staple-setting split rings. The rings operate to staple the everted ends together. The rings are opened in order to remove them from the repaired viscus.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,624,255 to Schneck et al. discloses an apparatus for anastomosing a pair of severed blood vessel portions. The apparatus is a ring member that tethers the blood vessel portions thereto under radial stress with the intima of the blood vessel portions opposed. During surgery, the ring member is positioned around an end of one of the severed blood vessels portions and the blood vessel portions are tethered to the ring member at at least three spaced apart locations stressing the blood vessel portions radially outwardly in several directions to evert the intima and hold the intima of the two portions against each other.
In all of the references described above, anastomosis is performed in which two free ends of the vessel are connected together. For smaller vessels, connecting two free ends of the vessel together requires a highly skilled surgeon and is quite time consuming.
There is a need in the medical community to improve anastomosis of anatomical tubular structures. It would be beneficial to anastomose an anatomical tubular structure without having to connect two free ends of the tubular structure. It would be advantageous if the skill level of the surgeon could be lessened to perform successful anastomosis, particularly for smaller vessels. It would be beneficial if anastomosis could be performed in less time than is normally required to connect two free ends of the anatomical tubular structure. The present invention provides these benefits and advantages.